


waiting's the worst

by hotelsweet



Series: passenger seat [2]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pregnancy Scare, Tumblr Prompt, charles with his hairless legs, from the epic detour universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 10:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12130272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotelsweet/pseuds/hotelsweet
Summary: pregnancy scare one-shot from my tumblr. set in the epic detour universe





	waiting's the worst

“Ames, are you okay in there? Charles wants to shave his legs. He’s going cycling later, saying something about aerodynamics.”

Amy jumps at the sound of Jake’s voice, her eyes shooting to the inside of his bathroom door, opposite which she sits, her bare legs chilly against the cool tile of the floor. A soft breeze filters into the room from the tiny window in the corner of the room- she takes this air into her lungs slowly, largely in hopes that it’ll make her voice sound more stable when she replies.

“Sorry. It’s. Uh… girl stuff,” she says eventually, her voice cracking a little, and actually finds herself cringing at the uncertainty in her voice. She’s _such_ a bad liar.

“Oh, okay. Tell me if you need anything, okay?”

She smiles inwardly at her boyfriend’s immediate sweetness, but no part of her relaxes; her hands are clammy, almost dampening the huge shirt of his she’s wearing where she holds it.

In front of her, on the bathroom floor, sits a pregnancy test. Next to it, her phone timer, currently counting down from two minutes and thirty seconds. She wasn’t exactly fazed by the extra thirty seconds when she bought the stupid thing, but right now it’s the most irritatingly long space of time she’s ever experienced in her life.

The timer, currently at 1:46, ticks down so slowly Amy swears she can feel herself aging.

Every part of her is panicking at once.

This is not the plan. Not that there even _is_ a plan for this; she’s in college, and she and Jake have been dating for about 18 months. Their lives together consist of takeout, movies, a hell of a lot of music, and fitting in dates around classes, the academy, and college parties.

If you could name one thing that is undeniably, completely incompatible with these lives, it’d absolutely be parenthood.

Amy’s stomach churns at the thought of it, even though it’s all she’s been thinking about all morning. Somehow, the idea of a baby is able to petrify her with fresh fear every single time it comes back into her mind.

She’s _never_ late. That’s how she knew something wasn’t right- at first, she actually thought it could be a cyst, or a hormonal problem, not a pregnancy. That is, right up until she’d had the harsh realisation that she and Jake had, indeed, had unprotected sex, late after a night in, out of sheer laziness.

Despite her strict adherence to the pill, Amy had immediately started to panic, and dashed to the store straight after her class to pick up a test. She’d then come to Jake’s for a movie night, as planned, and found herself completely unable to wait.

Which brings us to now.

Her eyes dart back to the timer.

1:40.

 _Six_ seconds? Amy sighs, leaning back into the glass of the outer wall of the shower.

What breaks her heart is that there’s no _way_ she’d be able to keep this thing, this child, if it’s there. She’s got a life ahead of her, a career. A long, successful career. Her mother had had her first child at 19 and although she maintains to this day that parenting was and is her only dream, the mere thought of it exhausts Amy.

What if Jake wanted it and she didn’t’? What if, god forbid, an abortion hurts her somehow, and she can’t have children later on? What if she convinces herself to keep it?

Her head pounds so hard she wouldn’t be surprised if someone could hear it, hammering away against her skull.

“Amy,” Charles’ voice comes from just outside the door, “how’re you doing?”

“Oh!” She responds instinctively. “Uh, I’ll be done in about a minute and a half. Exactly, actually.”

“Is there any way I could come in there with you? I need to make these legs smoother a china cup.”

Amy grimaces at the imagery. Glancing down at her phone, she stiffens- there’s no way she can realistically face Jake without _knowing_. She has to find out, and then she’ll talk to him.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea…”

“Are you using the toilet?”

“Um. No,” she replies firmly, surprised by his bluntness.

“Are you dressed?”

“Yes, Charles.”

“Then I’m coming in,” he says with a sigh, as if he has no other choice, and before Amy can say no, or push back against the door, Charles and his bare thighs are inside the bathroom.

Amy scrambles to grab her phone and the test- but as Charles walks in, he kicks the phone forward, so it slides into the- thankfully dry- floor of the shower behind Amy.

“Oh, sorry Ames,” he says, tutting at himself.

“Uh, don’t worry,” she mumbles, crawling into the shower to retrieve her phone. She sets it down beside her, where he can’t see it, and presses her hand holding the test into the pocket of her hoodie. “So, leg-shaving, huh?”

“Yup,” Charles says with some gusto, smirking proudly. “All the professionals do it.”

“Do they?” she asks weakly, watching the timer dip lower and lower, now skirting past a minute.

“Uh-huh.” He wets his legs over the sink, and starts shaving. Amy reminds herself to bleach it before she uses it next. “This is nice, getting a bit of girl time together in the bathroom.”

“Girl time?”

“You might not know this, but I’m a bit of a sucker for some pampering.”

“Charles, last week I walked into the kitchen and you were making scrambled eggs wearing a face mask.”

He shrugs.

“So what’re you up to in here? Shaving anything?”

“I- no,” she mutters, deciding immediately to move past his choice of question, “I was just painting my nails.” She looks at her bare nails. “My toenails.”

“Huh. How come you’re wearing socks?” He looks at her a little oddly.

“I’m done,” she says defensively, as if putting on a pair of socks is what every girl with freshly painted toenails does. She stands up hastily, watching the timer drop into the last twenty seconds.

For a moment, it seems like she’s going to get out of here scot-free- until Jake slams open the door into her side.

“Hey, why wasn’t I invited to the bathroom party?”

“Ow!” Amy grabs her side, shoving her hoodie to the side. For a moment she panics, realising this is the side where the test is hidden.

“Oh god, I’m sorry! Are you okay?” Jake half-laughs as he asks this, clearly amused by the farce of the three of them wedged into this tiny bathroom.

“Yes, no, don’t worry- I’m fine, but I guarantee I’ll have a bruise to show for it, and then you’ll feel sorry,” Amy rushes, laughing quickly. “Can I get out?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Jake shrugs.

She wedges herself in so they’re face to face in the doorway, and tries to wriggle past him.

“This is the weirdest evening of my life,” she mutters, glancing over at Charles, who, with the handle of the razor in his mouth, massages shaving cream into his leg.

Jake shifts to let her through, which should help- but instead does the absolute opposite, pulling her hoodie halfway off and knocking the test, with a clatter, to the floor.

Both of them stop as soon as they see it, completely stiffening, stuck in the doorway. Charles doesn’t notice for a good five or six seconds, washing his hands of the shaving cream. As soon as he does, though, Amy completely expects him to be the one to break the silence.

She needn’t worry about that, though- because, as if on cue, the timer on her phone starts ringing at full volume.

“That’s-” Jake manages, his voice a little weak.

“Yup,” Amy says quietly.

“Are you-”

“I don’t know.”

“A Jamy baby! A _Peraltiago_ baby! Oh my _gosh_ , guys, this is it! This is the dream!” Charles swoons excitedly. Amy turns to him, panic washing over her at full force. If she _is_ pregnant, she’s not finding out stuck in a doorway with Charles and his one hairy leg and one smooth leg. Not today.

“Oh my god,” Amy’s voice is low, like she’s about to cry, but no tears come, only more and more worry, accumulating in a tight mass in her throat.

“We can all raise it here, in the apartment! I’ll teach it different languages, though predominantly the language of _food_ , obviously-”

“Nope, I can’t do this here,” Amy ducks down and snatches the test off the floor, then runs into the living area as fast as she can.

“Wait, Amy,” Jake’s voice comes after her as he follows her down the hall. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” she says, deciding honesty is the best policy. She spins on her heel to face him. “Are you?”

“I don’t know… we’re super young.”

“ _Super_ young.”

“And super broke.”

“ _Super_ broke,” she repeats, thinking about the cold ramen noodle she watched Jake eat for lunch the other day.

“Poor thing wouldn’t know what’s about to hit it,” Jake laughs feebly.

With that, Amy’s knees buckle, and she drops to the couch.

“Oh my god,” she squeaks. “I can’t do this.”

“Ames, it’s probably nothing.”

“But what if it’s _something_? I’m sorry, I know it’s hypothetical, but you know I like to be prepared, and this is big thing, right? We have to think about the worst-case scenario.” She cuts herself off mid-ramble, gasping to herself. “Oh god, I potentially just referred to our future child as a worst-case scenario.” She puts her hand over her lower belly and grimaces.

“Babe,” Jake stops her, “if it’s in there, it can’t hear you.”

“If it is… can we lie and say that we were both really happy when we found out?”

“I don’t know,” Jake deliberates, sitting down and pulling Amy against him by her waist, “I think the story with Charles’ legs and the shared panic is pretty cute.”

She laughs relievedly into his chest, then groans tensely.

“Okay. We have to do this,” she says, looking down at the test. “What’ll we do for each result?”

“Huh… what about- if it’s positive- we apply for a bursary so you can stay in school… and we buy the cutest kids toys and furniture on earth… and we accept that our lives have totally changed but I’m still going to completely love you and our little accident, so freakin’ much.”

She looks straight at him, into those warm, kind eyes, and presses a soft kiss against his lips.

“And if it’s negative?”

“We get tipsy, watch a dumb movie, and have completely protected sex?”

“Sounds like a plan,” she laughs, kissing him once more, just for safety.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

She turns the test over in her hand.

“It’s negative,” she sighs. “I’m not pregnant.” Relief floods her from the inside out.

“Oh thank God, can you _imagine_ raising a kid here?”

“Clearly we would have raised it at mine,” she rolls her eyes.

“With Rosa and Gina, the queens of loud sex?”

“Good point.”

They relax for a second, both still looking at the test.

“For a second it really felt like it was going to happen, there.”

“I know, right?” She breathes deeply. “Jake, did you mean all of that stuff?”

“Huh?”

“I mean… the bursary. And the toys. All of that stuff.”

“Are you kidding? Amy, you could come home one day holding a Barbie doll you found on the street, claiming it’s your daughter, and so long as you meant it, I’d love the damn thing too.”

Amy laughs a little. He smiles back warmly.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Pulling him towards her, she presses her fingers into his hair, suddenly filled with a newfound appreciation for him, the sense that she could be completely off-the-rails, completely low, and he’d absolutely be there. It’s not necessarily that she didn’t know that before, she thinks, tasting his tongue on hers, but that now she _knows_.

“So. The drinking and the movie?”

“Both available,” he murmurs into her ear. “Just to clarify, the sex is still on the table, right?”

“God yes,” she purrs.

“Noice.”


End file.
